Inside the Braves with MLB.com's Mark Bowman

Braves lose Osuna and exit Winter Meetings happy

Before exiting this year’s Winter Meetings this morning, the Braves were reminded that Royals general manager Dayton Moore still has great interest in the players from his former organization.

The Royals selected Braves Minor Leaguer Edgar Osuna with the fifth selection in this morning’s Rule 5 Draft. While Moore, a former assistant general manager in Atlanta, will now have the choice to place Osuna on his 25-man roster, the Braves walked away from this selection displaying little remorse about the fact that they had just lost this 22-year-old left-hander.

“We didn’t think he was rated nearly as high as the guys we added to our (40-man) roster,” Braves general manager Frank Wren said. “We do think he has ability and made progress in the past couple of years. But we still felt we had other guys we would have protected ahead of him, even guys that we didn’t protect.”

Osuna combined to go 7-10 with a 4.02 ERA in 27 combined appearances with Class A-Advanced Myrtle Beach and Double-A Mississippi this past season. In the 275 1/3 innings he’s completed over the past two seasons, he has recorded 240 strikeouts and issued 66 walks.

The Braves didn’t select or lose any other players in this morning’s Draft.

Wren won’t be able to comment on Rafael Soriano’s trade to the Rays until the deal is officially completed. This announcement should come within the next couple of hours after the teams complete their medical evaluations.

But some talent evaluators seem to be high on the capabilities of Jesse Chavez, the right-handed reliever the Braves will get in exchange for Soriano. The hard-throwing right-hander could prove to be a solid addition to the Atlanta bullpen.

As mentioned earlier this morning, Chavez might not be deemed as having anything close to the value that the
Braves would have received via the draft pick compensation they would
have gained had Soriano played nice and rejected their arbitration
offer.

But at the same time, the 26-year-old reliever provides a tangible return that Wren wouldn’t have received had he not
provided the arbitration offer that Soriano provided on Monday night.

Meta

The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions.